


Leap of Faith

by DameRuth



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Classic Who, Gen, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 23:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fifth Doctor, cryptozoology and a dash of inspiration</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leap of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> My failed Big Finish "How the Doctor Changed My Life" writing contest story. I found out about the contest late, so I hacked this out very quickly indeed. Going on the premise of writing what one knows, I asked myself "how would _I_ like to meet the Doctor . . .?" and this was the result. While I'm not fond enough of amateur cryptozoology to go camping out on lakeshores in the rain, I'd be tempted to use it as an excuse to laze around outdoors on a good day -- assuming I lived closer to an appropriate lake . . .
> 
> This story suffers from losing a lot of description and background in the cutting, but I'm still pleased with how it came out given how fast I wrote it.

Halfway down the hiking trail to the lake's shore it started to drizzle, and I was glad I'd brought a disposable camera instead of my good Pentax. I never bothered with digital cameras; in the Photoshop era, a digital photo wasn't worth the pixels it was made of.

The weather matched my mood, and I was glad of the solitude. I didn't expect to meet other hikers. The Pacific Northwest's wet spring weather was a wonderful deterrent. The forest around me smelled pleasantly of moss, damp pine and cedar needles, and cool rain. The diffuse, overcast lighting brought out brilliant colors: a rich tapestry of greens and browns. I would have enjoyed it more if my nose hadn't been running from the chill. I flexed my fingers in my woolen gloves and wondered why I wasn't spending a Saturday morning warm at home, for once.

The trees suddenly opened out at the trail's end, and I was at the beach. This time of year, with water high from the spring runoff, it was a narrow crescent of gravel, no more than seven sloping feet from the trail to the water, running about twenty yards in either direction before being cut off by cliffs to the left and boulders to the right. I'd been looking at the ground in front of me while padding along the needle-cushioned trail, lost in my own depressed thoughts, but as I took a first crunching step onto the gravel, I looked up and got my first surprise of the day.

Someone else was already there.

He'd been standing with hands in pockets, looking out over the water, but he turned as he heard my footstep, smiling as if he expected me -- though his expression changed to one of surprise as he registered who I was. We both froze for a moment.

He was young, pleasant-featured, and blond, wearing a long tan-colored coat and striped trousers, a V-necked sweater, and a Panama hat. The attire was definitely eccentric, and oddly formal for such an isolated spot.

The stranger recovered first, and gave me a sunny smile. He walked a few steps forward, to convenient speaking distance, and extended his right hand.

"How do you do? I'm the Doctor."

The accent was even more of a surprise than the outfit: British, almost certainly. An off-season tourist? That might explain the odd clothing, but few tourists would be willing to come this far out in the rain. All the hotels were in town, on the far side of the lake. And how had he gotten here? I hadn't seen another car at the turnoff by the trailhead where I'd parked my car, either, which was odd, though I'd noticed the Forest Service had apparently added a blue porta-potty since I'd last visited.

I had a moment's twinge of concern over meeting a stranger in such an isolated spot, but this Doctor's pleasant good manners left me at ease, to the point of even feeling a little embarrassed about having been worried.

I reached out to shake his hand in return. "Jennifer Sanders. You can call me Jen. Doctor of what?" The question was reflexive, and popped out before I even thought about it.

The Doctor didn't seem insulted by my abruptness, however. "Oh, this and that," was his airy reply. Before I could respond, he continued on, "So, Jen Sanders, what brings you to this little beach?"

I winced reflexively. "You don't read the local news, I take it."

"Not really, no. I'm just visiting." His voice and expression were kindly, but questioning.

"I'm the loony scientist looking for the Bear Lake Monster," I told him flatly, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Might as well get the worst out of the way up front.

His eyebrows shot up almost to the brim of his hat. "Really?"

"Really," I told him, and dropped my gaze. I took a few more crunching steps towards the water and looked out over the water. It was iron-gray, topped with tiny whitecaps that came rolling in to lap at the shore. The light rain misted the distance, so it was hard to see the opposite shore a mile away.

"They had an article about me in the paper this week," I added, not sure why I was telling that to a complete stranger, but unable to stop myself.

He crunched up to stand beside me. "Is that bad?" he asked, conversationally.

"Oh, yes. They couldn't wait to make me look like a nutcase." I'd hoped for a real interview, a chance to legitimize my private study of the many strange stories reported from Bear Lake, to make worthwhile all the Saturdays I'd sat at the lakeshore with a camera. Instead, the story had been printed on April Fools' Day, with me as the fool.

"Didn't make me very popular at work, either."

"Where do you work?"

"I'm a biologist at the local University." I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my fingers as I remembered. "The department chair even gave me a talking-to, yesterday, said I was making the University look bad by looking for monsters in my spare time." It had not been a good day.

"Bad? Why on Earth would investigating something unusual look bad for a scientist?" the Doctor's tone of voice was genuinely surprised.

"Lake monsters aren't exactly respectable science, even as a hobby," I told him, looking out over the water. "And being respectable is more important than being curious."

"Now that's a cynical thing to hear from someone so young," the Doctor said, and I couldn't help shooting a sidelong glance to see if he was making fun of me. From the look of him, he couldn't be older than I was, and was probably even a few years younger.

His expression was as earnest as his voice, however, and once he caught my eye, he continued, with unexpected force, "If a scientist can't investigate something that seems crazy, how will science ever advance? Most great discoveries require some leap of faith to start. How else would humans have ever managed . . ." he fished for an example, " . . . well, to put a man on the moon, for starters?"

"But what's a leap of faith, and what's just crazy?" I asked, drawn into the debate by his intensity.

"Well, that, only Time can tell," he said, flashing a grin as if making a joke.

I snorted. "So what brings you here, Doctor?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I'm just waiting for some friends. In fact, you might want to meet them yourself."

Just then, there was the crunch of a new footstep on the gravel behind us. We both turned.

It was another, even younger man, wrapped in an overcoat against the damp and cold. He had close-cropped red hair and sharp, set features. He was stepping down off the trail, and had something that looked vaguely like an engine crankshaft carried propped up against one shoulder. He stopped dead where he was and regarded me with a chilly, suspicious expression.

"Ah, Turlough, excellent timing," the Doctor said by way of greeting. He gestured in my direction. "This is Jen Sanders."

There was something so gently, but forcefully, polite about the Doctor's introduction that Turlough shifted the crankshaft to his opposite shoulder and reached out to shake my hand and I complied, even though I could tell that gesture wouldn't have occurred naturally to either of us.

"What's she doing here?" Turlough asked the Doctor, still suspicious.

"She's here to see the lake monster," the Doctor said, with that same tone of airy finality he'd used before.

I could see Turlough register that remark, and then shrug it off with an internal _whatever_. "I still don't see why we had to materialize all the way up there," he said next, and I had the sense of an interrupted conversation being resumed.

"Exactly where here would you suggest?" the Doctor replied with some irony, gesturing around the narrow, sloping beach.

Turlough was gathering himself to respond but then his gaze focused past us, on the lake. At the same time, there was a loud splash, and the Doctor and I turned to look back out at the water.

An impressive fountain of spray was shooting up in the air, about thirty yards offshore, and then a solid form rose up out of the water -- and up, and up. A serpentine head, with narrow slits for eyes and short horns like a giraffe's, followed by yards of long, muscular neck, ending with the bulk of massive shoulders.

The long neck settled into a graceful arch, shedding sheets and runnels of water from a thin, fringelike mane, and the monster began gliding through the water towards us.

I stood dumbfounded, unable to even be afraid.

When it was ten yards from us, the creature stopped gliding, and obviously touched the lake's bottom. It continued to advance, humping forward like a sea lion. As the water grew shallower, I could see that the monster was indeed propping itself up on its flippers to move forward.

When it was ten yards from us, the creature stopped, and bowed its head and neck almost to the surface of the water, before rising back up to tower over us. The small, narrow head cocked to one side, and I had the weird, unavoidable impression this was not an animal. There was something far too deliberate about its movements, and the steady gaze of those narrow eyes.

"Hello again," the Doctor said to the creature, as calmly as if he were greeting an acquaintance in the street. "It turns out I did have a spare packed away, as you can see," he gestured towards the crankshaft-like object Turlough was holding. "You're welcome to it, but," here his voice grew unexpectedly severe, like a schoolteacher reprimanding a student, "you really need to start carrying your own spare in the future."

The creature ducked its head and gave a contrite rumble.

"Yes, well, I hope two hundred years stuck here has taught you your lesson," the Doctor replied firmly. Then he relaxed and grinned, glancing briefly at me. "Though you did give the locals something to talk about in the meantime," he admitted, and waved Turlough forward.

The red-haired man stepped to the water's edge, and the creature leaned its long neck towards him and delicately took the offered piece of equipment in its mouth. It straightened, nodded, and rumbled again.

"You're welcome," the Doctor told it, tipping his hat.

With a stunning heave, the creature reared up on its hind flippers and spun around. A long, snaky tail whipped past ten feet over our heads, spraying all of us with water, then the creature leapt up in an immense arc and plunged headfirst back into the lake. The three of us jumped back to (mostly) avoid the wave of water that swept up to break on the beach.

"Some thanks," Turlough muttered in an irritated tone, looking at his soaked shoes and dripping pants cuffs.

"Now, now," the Doctor said, with firm amusement. "It could have eaten us, so I think it was perfectly polite." He turned his head to look at me, and grinned at the expression he saw on my face.

"Nothing like having a leap of faith justified, is there?" he asked, winking.

"I'm dreaming," was the only thing I could manage to say.

"Not at all. And the best is yet to come." He gestured out towards the lake.

Dazed, I looked back over the water, still heaving somewhat in the creature's wake. The water settled in a minute or two, but then out towards the middle of the lake, the surface began to bulge upwards into a smooth, shallow dome. Suddenly, the dome of water broke, revealing the smooth, metallic surface that had been underneath, and a huge, circular shape began to emerge with a steady dignity. A sharp edge cleared the water's surface, and a gigantic, silvery, lens-shaped craft was revealed, hovering just over the surface of the lake.

Beside me, the Doctor laughed, and patted me on the back. I managed to turn from the saucer to look at him. "I hope this will serve as future inspiration," he told me, "though I fear the Bear Lake monster will be a moot point from now on. There are always other things to investigate." His face went thoughtful for a second.

"Don't bother with Bigfoot, though," he said in all earnestness. "That one's a complete myth. Otherwise," he grinned again, "the sky's the limit." He glanced back at the hovering craft, and I followed his gaze, in time to see the saucer begin rising -- smoothly, silently, and with increasing speed -- until it was lost in the clouds overhead.

The Doctor bid me a polite farewell, which I returned mechanically, then he and his companion walked up the sloping beach to the trail. I stayed where I was, looking out over the lake, trying to absorb what had just happened. I still wasn't completely sure this wasn't a dream, or else I might have followed after the Doctor, demanding explanations.

I stood for several minutes, watching the water settle. A faint mechanical grinding sound from up in the direction of the trailhead broke my concentration, and I glanced that way. The trees were far too thick on the slope for me to see anything, but I decided there must have been a truck or other piece of equipment passing by on the road above.

I looked back out over the lake, which appeared the same as it ever had, and for the first time, my hand went to the pocket of my coat that held the disposable camera. I had never once thought to take it out.

That was enough to make me laugh, and I realized I didn't need a picture. Knowing was enough, this time. I would never prove the existence of the Bear Lake monster, but the Doctor, whoever he was, had been right; there were other mysteries out there. I started for the trail and wondered what (besides Bigfoot) to look for next.


End file.
